Honestly, they look bored stiff. Especially the kids, Simba and Mufasa. Just another string of superstar performances way too close up, having to watch dad fake interest with that bored smile again. I'm sure it gets harder and harder to recapture the same thrill from taxpayer money, as the White House performances continue from year to year.

Haha. Video on Demand (VoD) was my dissertation topic -- mid 90s and early in the last decade too. In those days we were talking about specialized networks -- content delivery networks, IntServ, DiffServ and companies like Akamai but I also went around saying the Internet will be our solution and it turned out to be. Bigger and bigger pipes everywhere and why wouldn't it be smooth.

Malia and Sasha looked like they were just putting up with being made to sit still and behave. Stuck in the front row. On camera. How can you enjoy it?

Meanwhile, Obama and Michelle were bopping their heads constantly. Phony? Or did they actually love every little moment?

It's terrible to be in the front row, right where the artists can see you if you aren't totally into it.

I sat in front of some folksinger one time in that situation. Forget who it was. Somebody who'd been around a while and was respected. I thought he was ridiculous and found it hard not to laugh, because it would have been soooo inappropriate.

He was soaking up the love from the audience, but I didn't love him, and his self-adulation was bullshit in my book. Agh. The pain. I can't remember who I was there to see. This was at The Bottom Line, back in the 80s.

Not that there aren't hundreds of great relatively obscure bands that wouldn't love to play the White House for tips and publicity. But as long as the hoity-left gets their mutual masturbation time that is all that matters. Right?

As I commented way back when they closed the WH tours -- I asked my relative who is Secret Service and was uniformed at the White house for a couple years about the "cost" of the tours. (He thought the numbers were inflated.)

The Secret Service is salaried, and the "over time" they get is for special events in the evenings ... ta daaa...

So Obama can throw a party like this, have Secret Service on overtime, and keep Air Force planes grounded and the WH tours closed (while the Secret Service preps and flies to the Bahamas and Colorado ski country.)

Guys like this just get tied to the right. Voilà. Instant Democrats from single young women 18-30.

... because single young women are so totally capricious and unable to base their votes on a logical assessment of the candidates, that a few stupid comments from a putative right-winger will cause them to shift political allegiances, like a delicate flower petal fluttering in a strong breeze.

Remember back when we had people like these performing in the White House? That was great! The shoulder-drooping uncoolness of that sort of class of celebrity was an essential check on the power of the executive branch. Having a totally square Presidency keeps the President from becoming too likable and too comfortable in office. Even the power-mad, celebrity-inclined Clintons were kept in check by their dorkiness.

The Obamas are as dorky as the Clintons and the Nixons, but somehow the kids can't yet see that.

And the remark was about garage's new-found rancor at Choom. But, like all good little Lefties, some phony folksy wanted to direct the conversation away from the fact that Choom's approval is down right where it was before the Miracle of Sandy.

Too bad I wanted him to back up his own loud mouth and he couldn't.

And the names are still Carnifex' invention. I just thought they were funny.

I grow even wearier of these back-and-forth schoolyard insult sessions between the same few commenters. Seriously people, isn't there some stupider blog out there, where you can go crap up the comments section with your tiresome nonsense and leave us in peace??

As a Democrat and a woman, I'd be more shy about acknowledging my group identity's part in the current clusterfuck of a Presidency, so it does make more sense to blame it on a visceral reaction by millions of women to Edutcher's comments on Althouse. Otherwise I'd be admitting that the majority of my entire sex is dumber than a fifth grader singing "Obama's Gonna Change the World."

As a Democrat and a woman, I'd be more shy about acknowledging my group identity's part in the current clusterfuck of a Presidency, so it does make more sense to blame it on a visceral reaction by millions of women to Edutcher's comments on Althouse.

The irony is, all I did was point out that she didn't do what she said she'd do.

Wow. Step out for just a second and you return to find out you're a closet internet troll and an accidental racist.

I can never remember their names, both because the Obamas chose to make them faux-exotic but vaguely "African" and because the press rarely metions them.

I don't recall commenting on anyone's race, but hey, Inga (if that is your real name and not just a vaguely German faux-exotic you chose) thanks for zeroing in like that. Silly lion names (the ones I used for these poor kids, not the ones Obamas actually gave them) are a proxy for racism. You got me.

"I didn't realize you are Democrat and a woman, this changes things a bit."

I have been one of those two things since I was old enough to decide which I wanted to be. If I get it changed now, I'll have to learn how to read entirely new junk mail, and I think there is also something different about how you masturbate, but I won't know until I get the new junk mail.

I sat in front of some folksinger one time in that situation. Forget who it was. Somebody who'd been around a while and was respected. I thought he was ridiculous and found it hard not to laugh, because it would have been soooo inappropriate.

He was soaking up the love from the audience, but I didn't love him, and his self-adulation was bullshit in my book. Agh. The pain. I can't remember who I was there to see.

Nothing African about Sasha. It originated as a nickname Russians use for Alexander or (less often) Alexandra. But it never occurs there as a full legal name, for example on birth certificates, just as, say, Kev or Vic wouldn't here.

I know an awful lot of dogs named Sasha --- but for some reason only members of the big goofy breeds.

Did anybody notice that on the very same Drudge let-em-eat-cake "Soul Sequester page he lists a link to the fact the USAF is grounding SEVENTEEN! (17) active duty fighter squadrons due to sequestration at the very time tensions are mounting in Korea--to include THE VERY Squadron of F-22s from which Obama ordered two to Korea recently as a "show of force?"

This is so weird because last night I was listening to Otis Redding sing that song, I don't recall what started it now, but it is not a song that I ever practiced so I was imagining what it looked like, to say that, "the tide roll away."

The word for tide is one of those beautifully multiple movement act-it-out words. Not all dictionaries have the word.

The movement that expresses "roll" is two index fingers pointing to each other rolling together. The word "tide" does not contain a rolling motion, but it could! It's possible to adapt the word and stick "roll" right in the middle of "tide" which is already a multiple-movement thing. And that REALLY shows the tide rolling out. Soulfully the way Otis Redding sings it, not the way Tumbleweed or whateverhisnameis imitates Otis Redding singing it.

I know it's a Midnight Ramble here, but to my mind this grounding of our current combat capability at a time of international tensions shows Obama to be TOTALLY recreant in his duties as CinC. Indeed I would go so far to say these actions constitute an impeachable offense as his PRIMARY duty to this nation is to protect it. At a time when we are drastically reducing our combat capabilities while are enemies are arming to the teeth and he spends tax-payer dollars on parties at the WH that could be going towards flying hours for the Air Force? And don't tell me his hands are tied. There is LOTS of money in the DOD budget for long-term capital expenditures that could be moved around, deferred, etc., to keep current combat capabilities operational. This action is nothing less than sheer spite, nothing more.

Sickening in the extreme..but typical of a tyrant bent on cowing the armed services..

I saw the war on women first hand, and I immediately surrendered to Mitt. It was missionary madness after that. Sure I get thong wedgies every now and then from my sisters down at the co-op, but it was worth it.

President Obama and the first family enjoy singer and actor Justin Timberlake performing Otis Redding's classic "Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay" during the White House's celebration of Memphis Soul.

What in hell does Justin Timberlake have to do with Memphis Soul? Ugh. Rufus & Carla Thomas, Willie Mitchell, the awesome & integrated (buzzword alert!) Booker T. & the MGs, Isaac Hayes, and especially Johnnie Taylor were Memphis Soul. Jeez. One might include the Rev. Al Green, but he was late to the party. You might as well include Big Star, the most infamous obscure band since the Velvet Underground.

Semper Fidelis on the 35th parallel. And god bless the Memphis Jug Band!

Guys like this just get tied to the right. Voilà. Instant Democrats from single young women 18-30.

... because single young women are so totally capricious and unable to base their votes on a logical assessment of the candidates, that a few stupid comments from a putative right-winger will cause them to shift political allegiances, like a delicate flower petal fluttering in a strong breeze.

Last night I had a delightful evening...a meeting of our AAUW group, at the home of my radiation oncologist (his wife is in the group). A lovely dinner, which I half expected to be Indian food (our host was from India), and some new people with us, and lots of great conversation.

I arranged the guest speaker for the program part of our meeting. I had an assigned topic and ignored it and brought in someone whom I knew would be dynamic and engaging. She is a psych professor at my campus--a terrific teacher. She talked about the latest research in psychology about brain differences in men and women, and the evolutionary purposes of those differences (raising children), and her observations and conversations as a teacher of young adult college women. Fascinating conversation, not PC at all, very balanced, and reinforced the point that the spectrum of variations within each gender is greater than gender differences between the genders.

I wish we had a film crew there to record this roundtable discussion. It was the most interesting and engaging live conversation I've had in a long time.